THE LIPTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 21, 1999

Monica Seles

VERONIQUE MARCHAL: Questions for Monica.

MONICA SELES: Definitely. I think the last couple of years, really since I've came back, the fan support has been unbelievable. It has pulled me through a lot of tough matches for sure. Sometimes when I lose easily, it's very difficult, harder, because you feel you disappointed a lot of people. But it definitely is something, when you have tough losses, makes you keep going. To know when you come back on the court next time, you'll have that support, people want you to do well, keep fighting, working hard.

MONICA SELES: I knew I had to come out strong. A lot of the matches I lost the last couple of months, I've lost when I'm kind of sluggish. I'm trying to improve on that. Today I knew I had to come out against Conchita really strong. I did come out. I don't think she played the best tennis of her career. It was just a good match to play, pretty aggressively throughout.

MONICA SELES: What do you mean "physical regimen"? I don't know what physical regimen is talking about (laughter).

MONICA SELES: I don't know. I guess I had a physical regimen. That's an area I'm trying to improve upon (laughter). I don't know. I think I'm lucky that I have really good hand-eye coordination, obviously. My dad taught me really good, the fundamentals of the game. A combination of the two have definitely got me winning a lot of tournaments and matches. But some areas that I haven't made much improvement and have lost me some matches, too.

MONICA SELES: I think physically, I guess, I'm not there where I was five, seven years ago, where the other Top 10 girls are. I know that. Probably mentally, I'm not as consistent as I was. I was consistent seven matches, the entire tournament. Now I'm a little bit less consistent. That's one area I'm definitely going to try to make a big improvement.

MONICA SELES: Game-wise I think I'm close, I do feel, on most days. I still have some days when my game just disappears from me. I didn't have those days five or six years ago. That's the consistency. It has definitely helped the past year that I've been able to practice a lot more, but still not as much as when I was younger. It's difficult, because you play matches, doubles. It's very hard how many hours you practice. Physically, I'm not the same I was five years ago before the stabbing. Hopefully, you know, I'll change that.

MONICA SELES: No. Really just to play my game. I've played Conchita so often, I have a pretty good record against her. I knew the court is slower. She also kind of didn't have anything to lose. I just didn't want to get into a struggle out there. I had some long matches. The last time we played was a tough three-setter on clay in Spain. In this heat, I didn't want to get in that battle. I'm going to try to play my game. Luckily she didn't play that great of a match today. I was able to finish it off pretty easy.

MONICA SELES: It's one of the slower hard courts, I think. So it's definitely slower than Indian Wells last week. But it was also really windy out there today.

MONICA SELES: Yes, it was just swirling. Difficult to get the timing. It kept changing from one end to the other. That's why I think both of us had -- I don't know how many unforced errors, I don't know the statistics, but I think both of us had a few more than usual.

MONICA SELES: Just really tough to time it. I think with my racquet, it's even tougher to play in the wind.

MONICA SELES: Oh, a lot of things I have to do. That's one area I'm going to try to make some improvement upon. My dad would just -- used to do a lot of work that I haven't done. I've been playing a lot more tennis. Also, I felt after the two years I didn't play that much tennis, that I lost a little bit of the ball touch. I need to get back that. I do feel I've got that back pretty good the last couple months. Now it's on to a few other areas of my game.

MONICA SELES: I don't play any golf. I live on a golf course. I just played twice golf. That was it for me. I really like it here in Miami. Obviously a friend of mine goes to college here, Mary Joe lives here. It's a great place to be. I have a lot of my family and friends come down. I really enjoy playing here.

MONICA SELES: About the same. I think it's a little bit hotter here, to me it feels. All my matches have been in the hottest time of the day.

MONICA SELES: No, not in a day. No updates on that one. I'm still trying.

MONICA SELES: No. I'm terrible at that. I would like to do something in the form of kids. I really enjoy my work with kids. I don't know in what shape or form. But right now I think with the way tennis is, I need a hundred percent of my energy going to tennis. I really decided for the next couple years of my life, that's what I want to do. If I want to go back to the top, I need to give it 110 percent. It's just getting tougher and tougher. After that, there's so many more challenges in life, just see something that I'll enjoy that would be great. But I think it would be away from tennis.